[SOLVED] Can't get SDL2 to work with MinGW, VSCode and CMake on Windows 10

Issue

I want to use VS Code, mingw and Cmake on Windows 10. I made a simple app:

-SDL2
-main.cpp
-CMakeLists.txt

This is the current content of my CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.19.0)

project(main VERSION 1.0.0)
list(APPEND CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH SDL2)
find_package(SDL2 REQUIRED)

add_executable(main main.cpp)

target_link_directories(main PRIVATE ${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_link_libraries(main PRIVATE ${SDL2_LIBRARIES})

I also have a SDL2Config.cmake inside my SDL2 folder:

set(SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS "${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/include")

# Support both 32 and 64 bit builds
if (${CMAKE_SIZEOF_VOID_P} MATCHES 8)
  set(SDL2_LIBRARIES "${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/lib/x64/SDL2.lib;${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/lib/x64/SDL2main.lib")
else ()
  set(SDL2_LIBRARIES "${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/lib/x86/SDL2.lib;${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/lib/x86/SDL2main.lib")
endif ()

string(STRIP "${SDL2_LIBRARIES}" SDL2_LIBRARIES)

Building this results in 'SDL.h' not found, this is the include #include<SDL2.h>.

I also tried "vcpkg", this comes with triplets, the x64-windows triplet allows me to find the file but it wont compile since it's meant for VSCommunity. I tried the other triplets for mingw x64-mingw-dynamic and x64-mingw-static but they both failed building the package. This is the command I used to install SDL2 vcpkg install SDL2:triplet where triplet is one of the above mentioned.

Solution

If you use vcpkg you need to set the toolchain file somewhere. Either in CMakeLists.txt or you can set it in a command line argument:

1. CMakeLists.txt:

set(CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake
  CACHE STRING "Vcpkg toolchain file")

NB! Make sure that you get the path right!

2. As command line argument (I personally prefer this for easier portability)

cmake .. -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=C:<your-path>/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake

Read this on vcpkg integration.
The manifest mode is the ultimate pro tip, as this leads to clean CMakeLists.txtfile and a fully portable (and painless) process.

Answered By - Tamás Panyi